No more "fairy bread"?

There is yet another article in this morning's paper claiming that "fairy bread" is no longer acceptable at  school events. Apparently there is a list of "red" foods. It includes things like fairy bread, pies, pasties, sausage rolls, jam, honey, fruit juice, cream and (wait for it) butter. Children should only be allowed to consume these things at school "twice" a term...and deep fried meat like patties or burgers, deep fried chips, ice-cream, muesli bars with toppings and all sweets (lollies) are right out.  The humble "fritz and sauce" sandwich, the staple in many lunch boxes is also a big fat red "no". (Fritz is "devon" interstate - a sort of processed meat which I personally loathe but many children love it.)

Schools are being told that these are "guidelines" but in reality they will be expected to enforce them. 

There are already enough problems. You cannot send your child to school with a peanut butter sandwich in case another child is allergic to peanuts. Vegemite is banned because it is "too salty". Processed cheese is frowned on. Send your five year old to school, the one who has just started school, with a comforting slice of homemade cake and there will very likely be a note from the teacher telling you this is not allowed. The teacher may not agree with this but they will be following the "guidelines".  In one extreme instance a "cup cake" was actually removed from a lunch box and the child was not permitted to eat it. 

I know we have a "growing" problem with obesity and more but I look back on what we had for school lunches. Mum gave us meat on Mondays - if there was anything left over from the "Sunday joint". If there was nothing left we had Vegemite. We had peanut paste (as it was known back then) or cheese. Occasionally we had egg. Sometimes we had tomato. It was all white bread too because the bakery didn't make anything else.  Mum would put in cake or biscuits (home made) and an apple or banana or mandarin.  The school "tuck shop" was all about pies, pasties, sausage rolls, double cut rolls filled with ham or fritz and then "cream buns" or iced finger buns split and filled with butter. We came home in the afternoon and consumed "weet-bix" with Vegemite....oh, all that salt! 

In our family we did not get "fritz" sandwiches because Mum could not afford it but plenty of children had them more than once a week. We weren't fat. I can only remember two children who were seriously overweight. Perhaps there were others but most of the time we were too active...even I was an active child.  At night we ate a lot of mince meat with potato, pumpkin and peas or beans and perhaps fruit and custard for afters. We spent our pocket money on "lollies" too.

Somehow we survived all of this. Most of us are still here in our sixties, seventies and eighties. The Senior Cat lived until ninety-nine. My godfather may even make it to one hundred. Their diet was even worse - if you consider all the "red" foods they ate each week.

Perhaps it isn't lists we need but exercise?